`The people can always be brought
to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you
have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and
denounce the peacemakers for the lack of patriotism and
exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any
country.`

An interview with
Herman Goring during
the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials

April 8thIraqis arrested by US-led forces have been
vanishing into a `black hole,` reported Tony Blair`s
human rights envoy, Ann Clywd MP. Had the United States
taken this problem seriously from the beginning, it may
have helped prevent the abuse of prisoners in
Iraq, she reported.

April 9thAn
internal US embassy report on Iraq`s provinces concluded
that the stability of the strategic Baghdad region is a
serious concern. The 10-page report, dated 3 weeks
before the insurgent bombing of a Shi`ite shrine pushed
Iraq to the brink of civil war, says the governorate is
plagued by intimidation and assassinations of public
officials, Iraqi security forces and civilians. The
report finds 6 provinces have serious security
situation, and only 3 of 18 are said to be secure. This
is in contrast to repeated claims by the US that only 3
provinces have
major security
problems.

April 10thThe U.S. military is conducting a propaganda
campaign to overstate the threat to stability posed by
the al Qaeda leader in Iraq.
Col. Derek Harvey, who served as a military intelligence
officer in Iraq, told a U.S. Army meeting last summer:
`Our own focus on Zarqawi has enlarged his caricature,
if you will … made him more important than he really is,
in some ways.`

April 11thAs a result of water-borne diseases and a lack of
medical supplies, infants born in the southern city of
Basra are subject to abnormally high mortality rates,
say officials of European aid agency Saving Children
from War. Many doctors in the area say that the local
health situation has deteriorated markedly since the
US-led invasion of the country in 2003. `The mortality
of children in Basra has increased by nearly 30 percent
compared to the Saddam Hussein era,` Dr Haydar Salah, a
paediatrician at the Basra Children`s Hospital, pointed
out. `Children are dying daily, and no one is doing
anything to help them`.

April 12th
The Iraqi National Blood Transfusion Centre (NBTC) in
the capital, Baghdad, is making urgent appeals for blood
donations due to a shortage caused by the rising
violence. The demand for blood has tripled since last
December and has escalated further within the last
couple weeks of rising violence.

April 13thAt least 65,000 Iraqis have fled their homes as a
result of violence and intimidation, according to new
figures from the Iraqi government. The rate at which
Iraqis are being displaced is increasing. Figures from
the Iraqi Ministry for Displacement and Migration show a
doubling in the last two weeks of the number of Iraqis
forced to move.

April 14th
11 employees of a building company in Basra
were kidnapped and killed.

The United States began planning a
full-scale military campaign against Iran that involves
missile strikes, a land invasion and a naval operation
to establish control over the Strait of Hormuz even
before the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, a former US
intelligence analyst has revealed.

*This
estimate is only of English language media reported
deaths. A peer reviewed epidemiological survey (Roberts
et al., The Lancet, Vol 364 Issue 9448 pp 1857 1864)
estimated that in the 18 months following the invasion
100, 000 excess deaths or more have occurred. Violence
accounted for most of the excess deaths and air strikes
from coalition forces accounted for most violent deaths.
Criticisms of IBC methodology can be found at
medialens